Hey everyone. I need a bit of help with my computer. It is an HP 864n, loaded with windows xp media center. Whenever I try to start it up I get a message that says "Disk Boot Failure, insert system disk and press enter." The computer was given to me from a friend of my sister and there wasn't any type of startup or recovery disks that came with it. It is basically a hand me down that was working great until a few days ago.
1) I've opened up the computer and checked all connections (unplugged and plugged from the hard drive and motherboard)
2) I've checked the bios. The computer recognizes the cd burner, dvd burner, and floppy drive but won't detect the hard drive.
3) I tried to reinstall a fresh copy of windows xp. When I press enter to load the new copy the computer says "setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer".
Anyone know what's going on here? Is my hard drive toast?
Also, If it's not too much to ask, anyone have a spare, older, dusty hard drive (ide connection) that you no longer use that you could donate to a worthy cause? I would like to try a working hd before I head to best buy and spend $80 bucks on a new one, not knowing if that is the problem or not.
Thanks...
Michael
